22-Pistepirkko
Thanks
Bone Voyage

22-Pistepirkko is one of Finland's coolest bands ever. Maybe THE coolest. Hailing from the little village of Utarjärvi, in Northern Finland, they have (according to themselves) 'the two brothers and a friend, doing their thing. Since 1980.'

Last October saw the release of 22-PP box called The Singles. This 5CD + 1DVD box presented A-sides, B-sides plus a number of live (bootleg) recordings. Just before Xmas the made available a digital download freebie with another handful of bootleg live recordings done in Finland between 2004 and 2011. Seven tracks altogether. Most of them didn't make it onto albums, others ended up on single b-sides. Like always it's joyful and charming to listen to 22-PP, even though the sound quality isn't up to level A. That said, any bad sound can't destroy the quality of songs from 22-PP, even though all that glitter isn't gold this time. Like the band say: 'If you like it rawer this might be for you - 7 songs, rare versions, minidisk audience recordings from various gigs in Finland. Hear the band testing early versions of songs from the latest 3 studio albums.'

Favourites here included are "Sweet Boy", "Close" (a Suburban Ladyland b-side), the Neil Youngish "Storm Radio", and "Number One". They're still my favourite Finns.

Copyright © 2013 Håvard Oppøyen